Steve McClaren is regarded as a backstop option capable of remaining in charge at Newcastle if it proves impossible to broker a deal with a high-profile replacement.
Photograph: Lee Smith/Reuters

Steve McClaren continues to cling on as Newcastle United’s manager but is well aware directors have made contact with representatives of Rafael Benítez and are also interested in hearing what David Moyes and Brendan Rodgers could offer the relegation-threatened club.

Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director, refuses to be rushed into sacking McClaren. The former England manager is regarded as a backstop who can remain in charge if it proves impossible to broker a deal with a replacement.

With games running out for Newcastle to escape the bottom three, it is hoped a new manager can be settled on before Monday’s trip to Leicester City but the owner, Mike Ashley, will not sanction a change unless the appointment is an upgrade on McClaren.

The board are believed to want to hire a replacement capable of exciting disgruntled supporters and have ruled out Nigel Pearson and Harry Redknapp.

For the moment, Benítez is their preferred choice. Even so, they accept that persuading the former Liverpool and Real Madrid manager – or Moyes or Rodgers – to try to rescue them from the Championship may prove easier said than done. They are believed to be ready to offer the new manager appreciably increased autonomy in recruitment.

After years of struggle under Alan Pardew, John Carver and McClaren, there is a recognition the club’s strategy and managerial model requires radical modification. There is also an appreciation that the crisis – Newcastle are second bottom after losing five of their past six league games – is not solely McClaren’s fault but reflects systemic problems. Considerable soul-searching allied to major reform apparently beckons this summer.

McClaren is liked and admired by Charnley, Graham Carr, the chief scout, and Bob Moncur, the club ambassador, and there is considerable sympathy for his position.

There is also an acceptance that McClaren is struggling to get the best out of a challenging, high-maintenance multinational squad and that a manager in the mould of Benítez could well provoke a better response from a set of under-achieving players.

Although he stands to lose countless millions in television revenue alone should Newcastle be relegated, Ashley – who is heavily reliant on advice from Keith Bishop, a London-based public relations executive and a key confidant – is notorious for driving a hard bargain. Should negotiations with a successor, or successors, prove awkward or protracted the sports retail tycoon would have no compunction about leaving McClaren – who has made it clear he will not resign – to take charge of the team at Leicester.

After the meeting with Claudio Ranieri’s side comes a derby at home to relegation rivals Sunderland, who have won the past six Tyne-Wear derbies. Then, after the international break, Newcastle visit similarly troubled Norwich City.

Directors hope to have made a change by then but their failure to make significant progress on an appointment has led to a state of limbo. A planned meeting between McClaren and Charnley did not take place on Tuesday afternoon.

If and when it happens, dismissing McClaren will represent a failure for Charnley, who regarded the 54-year-old as the “perfect fit” when he appointed him last summer and has spent the past few months desperately hoping his man could turn things around.